Printer users, especially graphic arts professionals, rely on consistent and accurate color reproduction. To the human eye, the appearance of a printed color image changes depending upon the characteristics of the light illuminating the image. To optimize color reproduction of a printer, device specific color profiles are used to transform print jobs into physical printed images. A given printer's color profile reflects various characteristics. Those characteristics include the type of colorant used to form printed images, the type of media on which the image is formed, and the illumination under which the printed output is to be viewed. Thus, to optimize color reproduction, a color profile designed for the viewing illuminant, the printer's ink, and the print media is identified and then utilized to form printed color images.
Colorant and media types are easily identifiable. An illuminant is not. Often, a printer's color profile simply presumes a standard viewing illuminant such as D50. Other printers allow a user to select a color profile that corresponds to a desired illuminant manually identified by the user. If the user cannot identify the illuminant, the user can purchase an external sensor such as a spectrophotometer to measure and identify the illuminant of the environment in which the printed output is to be viewed. Such a procedure is not user friendly and can prove expensive.